1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to storage devices for drumsticks and similar beaters for percussion instruments used by percussion players. More specifically, it relates to such storage devices which are attached to the player's body with easy access to the drumsticks during performance.
2. Description of Related Art
Percussion players in bands, orchestras, jazz groups, pop groups or rock groups may perform seated, standing or marching. In all these positions they frequently lose the use of drumsticks and other beaters of percussion instruments while performing due to a number of reasons: the drumstick may slip out of the player's hand; the drumstick may break in two; or, a piece may chip off the tip of the drumstick. In such eventualities the player needs immediately to replace the drumstick, missing as few beats as possible. An easy access to a replacement displacement is needed. A similar situation arises when the player needs to add a beater such as a mallet when playing marimba or xylophone where two mallets per hand may be required after starting out with one mallet per hand.
Existing drumstick storage devices are of several types: a tubular vertical drumstick holder, like a quiver, mounted to a floor stand; a bag mounted to the player's seat or to the perimeter of a drum with a horizontal skin; or mounting holes in the percussion player's `throne`.
None of these devices bring stored drumsticks close enough to the player to permit him to quickly grab a replacement drumstick during a performance. A search in the patent literature disclosed related storage devices for elongated articles. Freid (U.S. Pat. No. 2,746,658) shows an arm-mounted quiver for arrows which can be removed from the quiver by the other hand. Schoenike (U.S. Pat. No. 2,464,101) describes a quiver for arrows where the arrows are stored in a multi-pocket flexible structure, with laces to attach the quiver to "the person of the user". Similar devices are the cartridge pocket of Fisher (U.S. Pat. No. 900,003) and the carrier for small arms fixed ammunition of Mills (U.S. Pat. No. 722,124). It is to be noted that the devices of all these inventors show the arrows or cartridges mounted in parallel arrays in close proximity to each other. This makes the rapid extraction of one article while the other articles are still in storage a matter of manual dexterity. Further, no specific suggestions are made how or to what body part these storage containers are to be attached (except in the case of Freid). Moreover, the arrows or cartridges have parallel surfaces in the longitudinal direction while drumsticks and mallets generally are of variable cross-section, the tip generally of smaller cross-section than the handle, with a taper in the longitudinal (or axial) direction between handle and tip. This taper needs to be accommodated in a storage device dedicated to the rapid removal of drumsticks and the like during performance.
Consequently, the present invention, designated a drumstick holding holster, was conceived to implement the required objects as stated below.